The Supreme Court has quashed an environmental clearance granted to a mining lessee over land officially earmarked for afforestation and ecological restoration under the Aravalli Project, holding that such earmarked land must receive the same protective status as land where plantation has already physically taken place — regardless of whether any saplings have actually been planted yet.
The mining lessee had obtained an environmental clearance for the land in question, arguing that because the land had not yet been physically planted with trees under the Aravalli afforestation programme, it remained available for other uses, including mining, until actual plantation occurred. The Court rejected this reasoning, holding that the protective purpose of the Aravalli Project would be defeated if land could be diverted to mining simply because implementation of the afforestation designation had not yet physically commenced — the ecological earmarking itself, once officially made, is what triggers the protection, not the subsequent act of planting.
The Supreme Court directed that the land in question, together with other land identified in the relevant District Collector's report as earmarked for Aravalli plantation, cannot be made available for any mining activity. The Court further directed its Registry to convey the judgment to the Chief Secretaries of Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and the National Capital Territory of Delhi — the States and Union Territory across which the Aravalli range extends — for compliance, signalling that the ruling is intended to have effect across the entire Aravalli ecosystem rather than being confined to the specific parcel of land in dispute.
The decision closes off what had functioned as a practical loophole for mining and infrastructure proponents: treating the gap between official earmarking and physical plantation as a window during which land could still be diverted to extractive use.